philip jose farmer Quotes

It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one's self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one's sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane.

By now you must have accepted the fact that your religion , in fact, none of the Earthly religions, truly knew what the afterlife would be. All made guesses, and then established these as articles of faith . Though, in a sense, some were near the mark, if you accept their revelations as symbolic .

Sawbeaked epitome of bodiless Idea, tossed by gusts of ether, dive Through abstract mists and raid the sea of fact Eat rich strange fish, grow long bright feathers, press Form's flesh around thought's rib, and so derive From the act of beauty, beauty of the act.

Beauty in this Iron Age must turn From fluid living rainbow shapes to torn And sootened fragments, ashes in an urn On whose gray surface runes are traced by a Norn Who hopes to wake the Future to arise In Phoenix -fashion, and to shine with rays To blast the sight of modern men whose dyes Of selfishness and lust have stained our days...

The way is open, comrades, free as SpaceAlone is free. The only gold is love,A coin that we have minted from the lightOf others who have cared for us on EarthAnd who have deposited in us the powerThat nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars.

Burton sighed, laughed loudly, and said, "Plus Ã§a change, plus c'est la mÃªme chose." Another fairy tale to give men hope . The old religions have been discredited although some refuse to face even that fact so new ones must be invented.

Confucius once said that a bear could not fart at the North Pole without causing a big wind in Chicago.

— Philip Jose Farmer

Despite my vast interest in other universes and new ideas and space, travel and time travel, which by the way I think is impossible, the basic thing is human character, which is the main thing of most writers.

By this he meant that all events, therefore, all men, are interconnected in an unbreakable web. What man does, no matter how seemingly insignificant, vibrates through the strands and affects every man.

The brain, knowing that a person can't live forever in this world, rationalizes a future, or other-dimensional, world in which immortality is possible. In other words, religion is the earliest form of science fiction.

It's a peculiarity of the Norwegian culture and of the English and American, too, that men are not supposed to cry. Stiff upper lip and all that. But the Vikings cried like women in public or privately. They soaked their beards with tears and were not one bit ashamed about it. Yet, they were as quick to draw their swords as they were to shed tears. So, what's all this crap about men having to hold in their sorrow and grief and disappointment?

Yes, we hope to seed a new, rich earth.We hope to breed a race of men whose powerDwells in hearts as open as all SpaceItself, who ask for nothing but the lightThat rinses the heart of hate so that the starsAbove will be below when man has Love.

One thing is sure, O comrades, that the loveThat fights to keep us rooted in the earth,But also urges us to dare the stars,This irresistible, this ancient powerWedged in the soul, unshakable, is the lightThat burns our roots and leaves us free for Space.

The truth is that Trout, like Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury and many others, writes parables. These are set in frames which have become called, for no good reason, science fiction. A better generic term would be 'future fairy tales'. And even this is objectionable, since many science fiction stories take place in the present or the past, far and near.